Saturday, November 03, 2012

The Hindu/Footloose/The Male Dancer

Dance has been historically
misconstrued to be a female art form. But there was a significant moment in
history when this happened. According to Ramsay Burt, a 19th century
lithograph in the Paris Opera reads – “The unpleasant thing about a danseuse is
that she sometimes brings along a male dancer”. This lithograph marks a
historical moment. Before this, prejudices against the male dancer in the west did
not exist.

Ancient sources indicate that
male dancers in the west did exist. Edith Hall mentions that Socrates is said
to have advocated dance and David from the old Testament is also said to be a
dancer. And yet, despite spectacular male dancers flooding the dance floor,
dance in the west and more recently in India, does bear signs of silent
prejudice against men.

In the western Romantic era, due
to the increasing acceptability of patriarchy, dance began to be seen as
fundamentally effeminate. Increasingly, men were encouraged not to appear soft
or emotionally expressive. Therefore, the expressive male dancer could not fit
into the power status of men in bourgeois society. A slow decline in the demand
for male dancers began. Similar disappearances of nude male depictions from the
sphere of art and sculpture also took place.

Further, ideas of homophobia arose
from this patriarchy and the prescribed role of the dominant male. One source
of prejudice against the male dancer became his association with homosexuality,
says Burt. Many male dancers were and are homosexual, but there are several who
are not. In any case, using the dancer’s sexual identity against him was
probably disguising a deeper insecurity and crisis of identity amongst the male
spectators. Pleasures of watching male dancers became, in the mid-19th
century, marred by anxieties about masculine identity. Erotic enjoyment by male
spectators of female dancers was threatened by the presence of male dancers.
Lynn Garafola asserts that men were freer to enjoy the erotic spectacle when
male dancers were eliminated. The heterosexual male gaze, therefore,
contributed to the stigmatization of male dancers all over the world.

Burt observed that in the 20th
century, male dancers did make a come back, but as far as the audiences were
concerned, they came back as ‘good supporters’ for the female ballerinas. In
the 1970s, as men were returning to dance, a spate of books were required, says
Edith Hall, to propagate the idea that dancing is masculine, portraying some of
the dancers of the time (Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and so on) as
strong, virile, heterosexual and athletic.

Closer to home, the picture was
slightly different. Historically, dance was not exclusively reserved for women.
Nataraja was advocated as the ancient patron deity of dance – the cosmic dancer
– linking men and dance inextricably. The male gurus of female dancers also
indicate that men played a significant role in codifying and formatting
classical dance forms in India. Moreover, folk dances in India and indeed all
over the world, have involved men and women equally and without prejudice.
Moreover, male dancers in India have played monumental roles in evolving dance
throughout the evolution of dance forms in modern history – Ramgopal, Uday Shankar,
traditional Kathakali and Chhau dancers, Kelucharan Mohapatra, Birju Maharaj
just to name a few. But the sort of patriarchy that alienated the male dancer
in the west, did, perhaps through Colonialism, enter the Indian subconscious.
And homophobia also came to be entrenched in Indian society. It is then
plausible that the prejudice against male dancers has also seeped into Indian
dance.

In the last several decades, male dancers have
fought for their place in the world of dance. They have demanded acceptability
and well-deserved recognition. But somewhere in the minds of contemporary
spectators, centuries-old prejudices still persist. Arising from patriarchal
ideas – that outline the dominant role of men in society and prescribe how men
should conduct themselves publicly in terms of their feelings – these
prejudices are deeply linked to homophobia, and outdated ideas of masculinity
and femininity. Male and female dancers cannot hope to be rid of this stigmatization
of the male dancer if these ideas continue to exist.

About Me

I am a dancer. I write about what I feel are pressing issues concerning dance in India, and what my hopes and concerns as a young dancer in India are. I also seek answers to questions that I feel need to be asked, and need to be answered. I write about things that trouble and move me as a dancer. The facts in my writing are corraborated by academic material published (where I have used other people's work, it is appropriately cited) and the rest are my personal opinion. If you would like to use any of my written material, please email me at aranyanibhargav@gmail.com. Thank you.